[Vision2020] Four Levels of Global Warming: A Climate Change Update

[nickgier at roadrunner.com]

Good Morning Visionaries,

Sam Scripter was kind enough to point out an error in my column on climate change. Contrary to what many people think, coral reefs do not act as carbon sinks. On balance they are carbon emitters.

Too late to correct for the Sandpoint Reader (I'll send a letter), but I can change it for the Idaho State Journal and Los Cabos Daily News, and of course my website.

As I said with regard to creation scientists and climate change deniers: "The willingness to correct errors always increases the credibility of those whom we want to believe.  Only ideologues believe that finding errors or conceding them are fatal weakness."

Thanks, Sam.

Nick

--that corals must take carbon out of the a---- Sam Scripter <MoscowSam at charter.net> wrote: 
> Nick . . .
> 
> Did Ted or anyone else point out the error below to you?
> Have you already "gone to press"?
> 
> Sam Scripter
> 
> You wrote:
> 
> Warmer and more acidic seas destroy coral reefs,
> which, under normal conditions,*take tons of
> calcium  out of CO2.*  About 80 percent of the corals
> at the eastern end of the Indonesian island of
> Sumatra are now dead.
> 
> 
> Here is a paragraph from Wikipedia about "coral":
> 
> Coral's narrow niche <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ecological_niche> and 
> the stony corals <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scleractinia>' reliance 
> on calcium carbonate <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Calcium_carbonate>
> deposition makes them susceptible to changes in water pH 
> <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PH>. The increase
> in atmospheric carbon dioxide has caused enough dissolution of carbon
> dioxide to lower the ocean's pH, in a process known as ocean 
> acidification <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ocean_acidification>.
> Lowered pH reduces corals' ability to produce calcium carbonate, and at the
> extreme, can dissolve their skeletons. Without deep and immediate cuts in
> anthropogenic CO_2 , many scientists fear that acidification will severely
> degrade or destroy coral ecosystems.^[28] 
> <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coral#cite_note-Gattuso-27>
> 
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coral
> 
> nickgier at roadrunner.com wrote:
> > Warmer and more acidic seas destroy coral reefs, which, under normal conditions, take tons of calcium out of CO2. About 80 percent of the corals at the eastern end of the Indonesian island of Sumatra are now dead.
> >